Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

In two recent issues we have published on this subject a general paper by an Insurance Company executive (Vol. 17, No. 1), and a position statement by a major National employer (Vol. 17, No. 2). In pursuance of our policy of inipartiality we now present, without comment, the ACTU official policy statement.

The author outlines a personnel information system designed by IBM to help plan and operate progressive person nel policy. Code-named PERSIS, the system improves the performance of most personnel functions, including personnel recruitment, selection and development, as well as administrative services. In the sphere of business plan ning it can give management accurate and up-to-date information to contribute to decisions on personnel policy and planning, and can also provide the means of monitoring the execution of its plans.

Four areas of technology are seen to have major significance for Australia in the next decade ... electronics, resources, energy, and transport.

It seems likely that there will be an increasc in technology transfer from overseas. Industrial conflict, unemployment and disparities in wealth are expected to increase and there will be some reduction in working hours. The challenge of the future already exists. The question is whether or not the personnel function is capable of meeting these increasing demands!

Employees have long been recognised by managers as being of substantial economic value to an employing organisation, yet traditionally that value has been ignored in the accounting systems of those organisations. In the past decade scrious consideration has been given to the valuation of human resources in a manner that would fall within the constraints currently affecting the financial disclosure policies of business entities. This paper focuses atten tion on the parallel between human resources and leascd resources, and notes certain implications for the disclosure of the value of a certain group of human resources.

Australia's record in industrial safety is one of the worst in the western world. In the main industrial States of the Commonwealth one worker in five is a claimant under workers' compensation insurance and one in ten sustains injury involving an absence from work of three or more days each year.

I n view of the importance of the recent development of mining projects in the Australian tropics, in 1971 the CSIRO Division of Building Research set up an inter-disciplinary task force to demonstrate how conditions could be created in the associated remote communities such that:

(a) people will be attracted to these towns; and

(b) residents will enjoy a quality of life as good as or better than that which they would expect to lead in developed centres anywhere in Australia.

In the course of a number of surveys in the early phase of this work, it became apparent that the existence of single men in these mining enterprises was often seen by managers to present a particular set of problems. In a number of cases they tended to be regarded as a necessary evil, and were stigmatized as unruly. For planners they represented a homogeneous group, who must be buffered from contract with the rest of the population. This often results in their being isolated from the community proper by being banished to barracks in remote corners of the settlement.

Accordingly in 1975 a sub-sample of single men was interviewed in Nhulunbuy concerning their attitudes and feel ings about the community. This paper explores one facet that emerged in the course of the interviews — the need to differentiate single men according to their subjective orientation rather than treat them as a homogeneous group.